Salty, possibly bitter.

Classes officially began yesterday and although in the grand scheme of things for me this meant very little--I have been on campus pretty much all summer working--it did mean a flood of people. I spent most of my day calming overly-anxious undergrads about their course plans. I also met many of our new graduate students. Folks that have been around for a little longer kept being introduced as "old grads" (as opposed to new grads), I refuse to take up this moniker, not because it isn't correct (my grad schooling is older), but because I prefer to think of myself more as a seasoned graduate student.
Here's to another year...

On the plate for this quarter:
- Dissertation grant proposals, due Oct. 15 and Nov 3 respectively
- Comprehensive Exams, due to begin Oct. 17, oral defense during finals week.
- Final revisions to publication, no deadline

two days, two backpacks. twenty miles.

We spent the weekend taking a walk in the woods east of home and enjoyed seeing the restorative power of the forest in a post-fire regime. The B&B complex fire burned a significant amount of the forest in this area in 2003, now, just 8 years later ghostly trees remain and the meadow and wildflowers are thriving.

We had a delightful time, hiking on a section of the PCT for about 10 miles and then skirting off to our overnight destination, about a half mile on its own trail. The next morning we connected with a local trail that looped us another 10.7 (to be exact) miles back to the truck.

Three Fingered Jack from the distance

Essentially, our hike circumnavigated the volcano. A feat that seemed out of reach when observing it from this far away...however, our approach was a rather gentle incline, and the next time we saw the peak it was surprisingly close.

Looking out over the ghost forest

This is me swiping away mosquitoes in the snow...the snow!

Looking much closer, the south-west side of Jack

Looking North to Mt. Jefferson

Much closer. We think it has more than 3 fingers.

Our camping destination from above.

Our midway point and overnight destination was relatively undetermined when we set out, more an inclination--we'd like to make it to the lakes. In fact, we must make it to the lakes, otherwise we will be melting snow water for cooking and for our hike out. We only packed in enough water for our first 10 miles, packing along the much lighter water treatment gear instead. It was our first time taking this approach and it was actually a great learning experience.

As we approached the lookout for the lakes a shout of thunder came from the distance, beckoning us not to linger. We managed to locate a relatively flat spot and erect our tent before the thunderstorm started in earnest. It was an intense but short rainfall as the storm passed quickly overhead. After a lovely camp dinner the sun had truly gone down and we headed to the tent. Within a few moments we heard something gallop past outside. Not heavy enough to be an elk, but not light enough to be a dog. Perhaps a deer...

post-storm sunset

coffee, breakfast.

ready for day two

I promise not to hang glide.

reclaiming the forest

Our path.

almost around, Jack from the south-east.

snacks among ghosts of trees

A wildfire at Mt. Washington and the last lake of our hike

I fantasized about sitting on the tailgate of the truck with my feet up and drinking our cold (waiting in the cooler) 'ride-home' water for about the last mile and a half of day two. My feet were quite sore after trudging through the dusty terrain. Our longest weekend backpacking trek to-date, it was absolutely beautiful and well worth the stiffness and soreness I am still feeling the day after.

'homework'

My birthday fig, now portable.

There are many things I enjoy about summer—with specific reference to work though— I will say that I give myself a bit more relaxation time and a less rigid schedule, which allows me to do other fun things, such as playing in the garden and completing projects on the house. The past two weekends have been a combination of both as we ripped out carpet, installed new floors, built a cedar box and planted, picked and pruned in the garden, made some delectable foods and enjoyed some deliciousness too.

I must also say, that it helps significantly to be actually in the country during the summer. I missed last summer quite a bit.




To maintain consistency with the existing floors we purchased a light shade of laminate wood flooring for the bedroom and our office. It pained us a bit to do it. We're coming to the latter half of our residence and ownership of this home and the decisions we make now are more about what fits with the ranch house, our budget and in a 3 to 4-year trajectory, which is, at times, in conflict with our social, environmental and otherwise long-term planning. I do think though, that it is rather funny to be worrying about laminate floors when we simultaneously seasoned our cast-iron pan, (over the same 12-hour period) by rendering pig fat from our 1/2 pig, purchased back in February, made a couple jars of tomato sauce from some CSA Brandywines and picked hops from our vines to embellish our evening libations.

 

Taking down the office...this is the before shot.

Anytime we make a significant change to this house we are met with some fantastic surprise of leftover goodness, circa 1972. In this case, there was evidence of two different carpets and some super awesome vinyl, that really wins the competition for crazy vinyl in this house overall.

 

Cat damage from move-in day.

Look! More vinyl!

"this is ridiculous" --Joe on removing the moulding

Oh vinyl, you are much better as a record.

planning.

Completed floor.

Reconfigured office

Bedroom, sans carpet

Half-done, the bed migrated as we worked

Finishing touches

Bedroom: same same but different

Before: frozen, chopped fat

As I mentioned above, we also took the opportunity, being home all day, to render fat. No, not like this.

When placing our order with the butcher back in February I asked for the fat from our pig. It has been in ziplock bags in the freezer, I took out about half and consulted with Rosanna to see how to go about it. I have to admit, at this point I was most excited about seasoning our cast iron pan, which has sat lonely in the cupboard for over a year.

After.

Without going into too much detail, I can say that it took longer than expected. I cut the fat up into too large of chunks, which lengthened and complicated the process and made all of the neighbors likely hate us. We used the homebrew burner and propane outside, which allowed a smell reminiscent of 1000 pounds of bacon being cooked to waft over our fence for 12 hours.

Lard.

I also used my new food mill to make the first tomato sauce of the summer. Although, since it's reached almost 90 degrees here every day for the past week, I do slightly regret opening the bottle of red wine to season the sauce with. It will likely be vinegar before I'm in the mood to drink it again.

What I really want, is one of these:

A mix of hops from the garden

arts and crafts (read: shenanigans)

We couldn't find the water balloons...so we used the next best thing...

A great friend of ours had a milestone birthday recently (not so much in years, but in deeds, let's say). We contrived to make it memorable by putting our elementary craft skills and drunkenness to work...the results of which were "hilarious."

Ian David wonders at the pinata medium

The mastermind behind the pinata, crafting her genius.

flour and water and boys

While not taking photographs I made silly faces

The other side had the Boston Red Sox "B" on it, oh yeah!

Sadly, my camera was not at the unveiling, but it was gloriously bashed in by the birthday boy with a baseball bat the next day.